Chapter 1
It was in the Hunting-Lodge at Mayerling in 1899.Not the streets of Sarajevo in 1914; that the first shots of WW1 were fired...
‘I am the son of peasants and I know what is happening in the villages. That is why I wanted to take revenge, and I regret nothing...’
Gavrilo Princip; interviewed in court.
October, 1914.
‘Our ghosts will walk through Vienna. And roam through the Palace, frightening the Lords...’
Gavrilo Princip; dying in prison
April, 1918
Forethought…
If you believe in coincidence, and it certainly appears to permeate most lives. In the course of my recent research I have uncovered two pieces of information that would have helped me greatly if I had previously know of their existence, whilst involved with the case of Ms Irena von Harstead. One was a letter, found in the national archive by my wife Martha, the other, an extract from a book given to me by one of my pupils a few months ago.
Looking back on my American trip some 5 years hence, the recollection of my experiences have allowed me the opportunity to re-examine the notes and observations that I made on the matters that I saw there. The account that will unfold in the course of this tale is in part true and in part pure speculation; but that is what makes a good story, no?
With the flow of recent events I believe Austria-with or without German collusion-to be on a crash course with Russia if not the rest of Europe. For I believe that we see war as an opportunity for demonstrating the progress of mankind in communal feeling, a chivalrous crusade that young men always flock to
I now consider the events around the ‘Mayerling Incident,’ of over 20 years ago to be an utter failure on my part. I misguidedly refused to see what was clearly in front of my eyes, albeit negating the essence of the very work that I am renowned for. For that, and to the memory of my late friend I am truly sorry.
Dr Sigmund Freud, Vienna, 3rd July, 1914.
12th July 1410
My dearest wife it is once again the time of blood. We are born unto blood, and some like I must die in it. Tomorrow we face a combined force of Poles, Lithuanians, Czechs and Russians, thought by our scouts to number some 30,000 strong. For the Tuton’s and the holy knights it will be the last battle, not only of the Great War of these past two years, but of the order itself.
Against this force we cannot succeed. I know this to be true, for of late I have had a vision that has come to me many times, that I, like they, will drown in the gore that awaits us. They will not surrender. They will not retreat. They will stand to the last. For they fight, how these monks do fight. But for man to live without a woman, is akin to living without the love of his God. As the order passes, so I shall pass with it. Do not grieve when they bring you the news, for I am happy to seek out death, as I have lived with him throughout this campaign. In each of our lives we have an allotted time, and I have seen mine, but my spirit will continue to follow the work began; you and my fine sons will see to that.
I ask one thing for it is my legacy to all that I believe in. The castle’s at Seitz and Borna, my holdings at Poznan are to be sold and the monies distributed as you see fit. I ask you only this, as a fitting legacy establish a movement to further the cause of unification. We have lived too long as individual states riven with petty squabbles, and intercene rivalry. So we must work together, acting as one for the good of a higher Germany. Pieter is with me, I intend to send him home with this letter, he will not witness the carnage to come, I will now shield his eyes, as I have shielded his body all his life. I die as I have lived, your loving and devoted husband, and a true believer in the United German Empire rather than the Holy Roman one...Hydier...
A letter found on the body of the German knight, Pieter Glasser, who died of wounds received at the battle of Tannenberg, 14th July 1410 in the monastery of Marienburg, latter forwarded to his mother the Lady Magdalene, in Leipzig.
To understand the values of this new Germany one must also look at the military-monastic orders that grew out of the first Crusade in 1119. Although the Order of St John - known as the Hospitallers – was founded some 40 years earlier, looking to the ministrations of the body, where the knights of the Teutonic Order looked to that of the soul. The ‘League of the Magdela’ grew out of the defeat of the Teutonic force’s at the battle of Tannenberg in 1410, formed from the remnants of the order. A breakaway group, heavily funded by a group based on the same religious doctrines, and monastic vows that had been so successful originally; that of chastity, poverty and religious obedience, formed, met and carried on the business of Germanic reconstruction under a covert blanket of secrecy.
The creed became diluted over the centuries, allowing marriage and the gaining of individual wealth, but basically the principles of the order remained the same; a furtherance of the Teutonic cause, believing the power of the military virtues of ruthlessness, courage, self-discipline and primarily state before self. ‘The Magdela;’ named after the Aramaic name for the Sea of Galilee was thought to have disappeared altogether shortly after the end of the 30 Years War.
In the last 20 years the society has been active again, its aim the preservation of the Germanic people and their way of life. Though the ideals of penitence and prostration ceased to operate, they have timed their activities to coincide with the rise of Prussia and the need to create a culturally and biologically pure race of free, right-thinking and leaning peoples. Who by force of will, if not by force of those arms alone would triumph over any adversity.
It was vocal in its defence of the Catholic Church, portrayed as a secret society promulgating the belief that the Pope-as spiritual head of Gods kingdom on earth-is infallible. That there is a divine right of King’s and Pope’s to uncontested rule, was looked on as fanciful a notion as that madman Darwin’s theory we come from apes.
Rumours have long been put about that they are not been above blackmail, extortion, and outright murder. They have been linked to the recent attempts to assassinate the communist writer and political activist Karl Marx, in his London hideaway, attempting to then discredit him in the British press. They fared better in Spain causing unrest in Barcelona, Madrid and Seville, before turning their attention to the Balkans, fuelling a wave of strikes and wide-spread unrest aimed mainly at the church.
Forces within the present government believe that France, always a target after the Franco-Prussian War is a spent force. Believing that having humiliated them once and for all their talk of ‘revanche,’ hope it is not necessary to do so again. A lesson taught, should be a lesson learned.
England, because of arrogant English ways remains aloof, yet an empire in decline. The press can be bribed, but the middle-classes are too entrenched in the old way’s to do so. The ways of class and aristocracy, weighed down with the weight of heritage to be much affected by anything than themselves. America that great stealer of our poor is frankly a disappointment on all counts. And Russia is a slumbering giant, a bear who, if it ever awakes, will simply roll onto its back and fall asleep again.
Germany has awoken from her own long slumber! She is no longer a confederation of independent states, but has emerged from the darkness of the past ages as an Empire. We are at the centre of Europe with some 40 million of souls to consider our own, but if our newly unified Germany is to take its rightful place at the head of that Europe, our way forward is to ally ourselves fully with Austria, our brothers in tongue and creed, and so marching forward unto greatness together.
The powers of Europe are spent and it is surely to Germany that the task of survival will pass. When that time comes, as it surely will, we must be ready, and able for it. For what are we to do but stand alone and apart against this tidal wave of socialist and religious falsehoods and so take our rightful place in the sun...
Extract taken from the book, ‘Arise a Greater Germany,’ by Prince Otto Glasser, Berlin, Crown Press, March, 1884.
Prologue
Vienna, Early Summer, 1888.
It was the month of May, and the planets were locked in a conflict of yearly renewal. Finally, after all the battles of winter were done in the firmament of the heavens, the God’s had allowed light to return to a city in darkness. Now it was early summer and as always, Vienna looked at its best. All around trees were easing into bud. The pungent smell of the early blossom’s hit the air like a pistol shot. Neither smelling like sulphur nor cordite, but all the aroma of the loving kiss of a bride on her wedding day, shuddering in expectation at her grooms appearance.
From out of the shadow of the great13th century Stephensdom the Corpus Christ procession exploded like a ball of unwinding twine. In a swirl of secular colour it hustled its way through the streets of the city, to perform an act of contrition, the celebration of open-air-mass held at the Michaelerplatz, before returning from whence it came.
First and foremost among the cavalcade of power came the Cardinal of the city, resplendent in his red mantle of office, followed by lesser bishops, priests, fathers and friars; prelates all to the greater glory of God and the faith that gave them birth. The Lord Mayor of Vienna and his retinue came next, followed by the Dean of the University, principles, lectures and members of the faculty.
In the middle of these learned dignitaries like the filling in a righteous sandwich, strode the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, Francis Joseph the First, ruler of over 50 million grateful subjects. For once he was accompanied by the Empress Elizabeth Amalie Eugenie von Wittlesbach of Bavaria - here under sufferance, as her dislike of the court and it’s endless ceremonies was legendary.
Bareheaded and penitent they walked, a candle in each left hand, jewels and decorations glinting in the mid-morning sunlight. Behind them came the Lord Chamberlain, ranking members of the Court and Councils of State, and of course, Crown Prince Rudolf and his ignored wife, the Crown Princess Stephanie of Belgium. Dukes and Duchesses in serried ranks of seniority, meekly followed by Counts, Countesses and lesser noblemen. Foreign ambassadors, Equerries, Ladies- in- waiting, Gentlemen of the bedchamber, Aides-de-camp, Generals and admirals with row after row of medals glistening on their ornate uniforms. In fact all the members of the offices of the sovereign, hurrying in agitation as if in the wake of a great ship under full sail.
Bordered like bedding plants by row upon row of stern faced halberdiers, dressed in medieval costume, all of who had staggered from breakfast, but a short walk from the nearby Hofburg. From each and every open window they passed beneath, hung the citizens of the city, every one clutching a painting, print, or a chipped statue of a favoured Saint; in order that it may be blessed by the gaze of the holy procession, and so favoured by the dead. A mark that they in turn would be blessed, the revered object doing its plaster or paint duty, keeping them and theirs from harm for another year.
Corpus Christi was also a trumpet blast, heralding the start of the long, hot, summer days. Sybarite’s and sensualist’s, carousers all, awoke, dusted off a bright array of holiday finery, and emerging from hibernation ran as a peacock does after a hen. Like hungry foxes they licked dry lips, waited and watched all through the warm evenings, eyeing the chairs that lined the jasmine path to the terraces of the Prater Park, a huge expanse of green avenue’s sprinkled with a thousand different plants. All shaped from the mud of the man- made hill, the Constantinhugel, created to house the World Exhibition of 1873. Yes they waited for it was the joyful start of the season when husbands divorced wives to be with younger lovers and wives poisoned husbands in order to do likewise.
Marital discord ran like a spectre along the corridors of the Hofburg as it did elsewhere. Whispers became rumours, rumour became fact, and fact carved in stone, to be repeated in every shop and city tavern. It was slandered in the salons of the Postgasse, the coffee houses of the Singerstrasse, and a thousand ill-reputed establishments on the fringes of the city. Played out as reality in the draughty rooms of the Hofburg, and the Schonnebrun palace’s.
That ‘Sisi,’ Elizabeth, Queen-Empress of Austro-Hungary, stopped her husband entering her bedroom, hence her bed, forcing him to look elsewhere for his coital pleasures. Mistresses were not a topic up for discussion in most of the drawing rooms of Europe and in royal ones even less so. In those circles they were merely a fore-gone conclusion and one to be positively encouraged at that Royal marriage on the whole was no made from love, but necessity. To strengthen a threatened border, to secure a needed treaty, to have access to a ripe pair of loins in order to enlarge the bloodline of a shaky dynasty. But when these simple tasks were achieved it was expected that the ruler would take unto himself a love, or if necessity permitted loves. Francis Joseph was no exception.
With the Emperor’s apparent approval Elizabeth erected a façade for the marriage,
positively encouraging his infidelities. Thus, he had rumoured to have been sleeping with
Anna Nahowski the plump, but attractive wife of a railway official for almost 15 years, and
lately taken up with Katharina Schratt, a popular comic-actress at the Burgtheatre. The
imperial couple had been emotionally and physically apart a long time now. Her incessant
travels keeping her moving further and further from her neglected duties. England. Greece.
France. Turkey; all enjoyed her company for lengthy spells. The joys of freedom infused like
mashed tea with bitterness.
In truth Elizabeth had never forgiven the Emperor for infecting her with a disease of the
lower parts, caught during his Italian campaign. Now she was Empress in name only.
Nothing would grow in her ageing womb. There was no room for an heir, or a spare, the
necessity of princes everywhere, in case the unthinkable happened; the elder one died. Like
a little nut tree nothing would bear the fruit that may be needed should the facade of regal
stability flounder on any number of unseen reefs, anything untoward happen to the heir-
apparent Crown-Prince Rudolf.
But no, what could happen to a young man on the threshold of his life, with as many years
stretching in front of him, as his father had left behind him. Thus the irreproachable spirit of
Empress Elizabeth roped and tied her husband, as if a performer from the Wild West Show of
Buffalo Bill Cody, who had recently performed in the city, had put a lariat around his neck,
holding him until he was broken.